updated 07:10 pm EDT, Thu April 2, 2009

MS hints at future of Zune

The first hints of Microsoft making good on its promise of bringing the Zune platform to other devices than the current portable media players have come in the form of two job postings discovered today. The first is seeking a software development engineer for the Zune team to help deliver digital entertainment into the living room, while the other is hinting at the Zune service and Zune Marketplace extending globally.

The living room offering may include new hardware or perhaps existing platforms such as Xbox 360 or a new third-party hardware interface similar to the Apple TV and would deliver on-demand video and audio.

Microsoft has increasingly shied away from focusing on the Zune players themselves as the center of its strategy. While arguing that it ultimately needs to spread the interface, marketplace and other traits of the devices, the company has seen its year-over-year Zune revenue plummet without significant hardware revisions or expansion to other countries. [viaArsTechnica]

It must really irk MS for Apple to have a huge share of anything.If Apple hadn't invented the iPod, lackluster and unimaginative MS probably would have never thought of the Zune... now they probably wish this was one thing of Apple's they didn't try to copy.It's in Apple's DNA to do these things. If MS hired away ALL the Apple Engineers and moved them to Redmond, they still wouldn't get it.

...why would anyone want to develop for Windows or the Zune. In the end MS just can't develop innovation in the one thing it concentrates on, an OS, and it is forced to try to "innovate" where 3rd parties already exist (mice, game consoles, music players) and now wants to move to the living room.

Why would you want to be a Dell or Hp, when all you are doing is figuring out how to sell someone elses OS, and a lame OS at that, and have to wait for the gorilla to decide whether it wants to take another of your markets!?!?

I know buying into the MS hegemony is basically a no-brainer in an age of near monopoly, but it is ridiculous to think of so many businesses and so much investor money being held hostage by Monkey Boy and the Redmond technocracy.

Why would you want to be a Dell or Hp, when all you are doing is figuring out how to sell someone elses OS, and a lame OS at that,

HP has their own OS. HP-UX. Never took the world by storm, as its just another Unix variant.

And what would you suggest? That Dell start up their own OS division and create computers that work with that? Oh, that will work great. Nothing like having 15 computer manufacturers with 5% market share each, all incompatible with the rest.

Oh, I know. Dell should get in bed with Apple and start selling OS X computers. That would be a great move! Oh, wait, Apple won't let others sell computers.

and have to wait for the gorilla to decide whether it wants to take another of your markets!?!?

Yes, as opposed to Apple, who have no problem getting into markets they aren't in (music players, phones) but that's OK, because they're apple, so its better, so its OK. But if MS gets into another market, they're 'stealing' it.

And what markets is MS taking from Dell or MS? The third-party keyboard market and mouse market? Besides the fact that they don't really sell those things seperately, you'll note there's a lot of competition in that market. MS hasn't exactly driven out Logitech and the rest.

I don't think Apple "steals" rather it changes new markets. Whether it's the original Mac, the iMac, the iPod or the iPhone, Apple always sets out to change a market whose existing products seemed aimed at the very people who built them; basically, Apple attempts to make technology easy for the Everyman.

But name one successful, original product from Microsoft that changed a market...not controlled but changed? No, Microsoft is most adept at slamming a market with its money & spin to try and control it...some times a winner (XBox) but more often not (Zune, WebTV, SmartWatch, etc.)